Got annoyed then bored with Advogato some time back. Came
back for a look today, wanted to post a comment on Bruce
Perens patents article, then found I've been busted back to
Observer, so no longer have article posting credentials.
Ironic, since observing was precisely what I was not doing.
Fickle system.

FWIW, for the last couple of months I've been occasionally
writing journal entries on my own web
site: very little, I'm afraid, to read there on software
-- mostly music, books, movies, recipes, Bill Mazeroski.

Speaking of patents, my pet idea is to throw the defensive
patenters into therapy, specifically a program to be called
Patents Anonymous (or more likely, just Software Patents
Anonymous). This would be an organization that provides
automatic cross-licensing to all members, and possibly other
services, such as:

An open, running comment forum on all new software
patents.

Prior art search.

Clean room tests of originality. (One way to test how
original a patent is would be to pose similar problems to
other developers, to see how frequently other developers
come up with similar solutions. Don't know whether this
would have any legal clout.)

A forum to log ideas that other might eventually patent.
(This would allow free software developers to pre-emptively
publish notices to foul would-be patenters.)